My Miscanthus sinesis 'Silber Fedder' has been in the same spot for 8 years now and has only spread to about 4 feet in diameter and produced just two babies from seeds one that I have transplanted and one that I traded away. Northern Sea Oats will stay put but, one must collect the seeds before spring or plants will be coming up everywhere(the babies are pulled easily though). The patch I grow by my pond has been there for five years and never gets any bigger. I usually remove the seed heads in January. Is there such a thing as any well behaved plant? I find different things growing all over the place. I must have spilled some pepper seeds in a large container of soil in the greenhouse last winter because I have had peppers come up in four or five potted plants. Since they have a cool dark foliage, I just leave them. This white torrenia was a volunteer as well in this pot.

Tom, that's really interesting about the relationship between the horned toads and red ants. We had giant red ants, nearly as big as carpenter ants, down around San Bernardino when I was a kid, and we also had horned toads. I don't think I've ever seen any since then. Janet, I think I'm going to have to be very careful with the grasses, now that you've said that some can be quite invasive. Naturally I knew that, but I had hoped the ones that we see in use as ornamentals would tend to be more well-behaved. I've got 6 acres of cleared pasture, but I don't think I'd call it prairie, since we're pretty well surrounded by oak trees everyplace else. I've also got a border of cedars that runs all the way around the property. The original owner put them there. I hate the things because of the way they tend to harbor ticks and they are such a fire hazard. My big flower border where I'd like to use some ornamental grasses for interest, runs across the front of the house section of the property, but it's on the far side of a humongous cement parking area that's about 40' x 130'. It's nearly the size of a city lot! If the bed on the far side was just a little strip, it wouldn't be so bad. It's not. When I ordered weed cloth, I had to measure it to get an idea of the size. It's 24' x 80' and was full of stuff like crabgrass, burr clover, stick-tights and poison oak; a big weed patch that had to be mowed all the time. After the first year, I couldn't stand to look at it any longer. The soil in the bed seems to be pretty good, as I've said before, but it isn't what you could call a 'yard' with all that concrete between it and the house. I began a weed control program and started putting in some of the larger foundation plants; a couple of maple trees, 3 crape myrtles, a Rose of Sharon and so on. The maples may eventually hang out over the parking lot, but it's so big that I can't see that it will be a problem. The soil in the bed seems to be pretty good, and looks to be a pretty neutral ph, but as I've said before, but it isn't what you could call a 'yard' with all that concrete between it and the house. Weeds are still my biggest problem, and most of them are a grass of one sort or another. The crabgrass/devilgrass is a nightmare. I'm going to try using the industrial-grade weed cloth that DeWitt sent to replace the stuff that failed, but the last thing I need is something that tends to be invasive, or that will let native weeds grow up through it. Somehow I managed to bring in a start of vinca major, and it's a disaster. Now it's another big bunch of tall grass with vinca leaves poking through it. I need to rip it all out. Are there any of the native grasses that are both non-invasive and also dense enough to pretty well choke out anything that tries to grow through them? I see them a lot in Shawnee and Tecumseh, but they are in planters with little else around them, so it's hard to tell what they would do in a garden like this, that tends to have a rampant grass population in spite of everything I can do to stop it. Oh, and I think you're the one who directed me to that silt test at Fine Gardening? Or was it Tom? I've forgotten. Anyway, thank you. I quit taking the mag a long time ago, so I hadn't seen it. It's a really good article, and I'm going to try it. The question seems to have already been answered. I won't be digging up any trailer-loads of the silty stuff in the chicken pens and putting it in the garden. I'll just stick to adding manure to the compost heap. I do have a neighbor who raises chicks and who sometimes brings the cedar bedding from the pens, so I add that also and let it compost down. It should not be any problem, should it? The bedding I add in from our sheep pens is generally oat straw or native grass hay and manure. I haven't worried about it too much and it does not seem to be seeding. I hope I'm not creating a monster by using it and will get a big surprise later on. Sorry I wandered around so far away from the original topic of garden grasses. It's hard to draw the line between controlling weed grasses and putting in the good ornamental ones and keep the thread separate. Pat ps: Janet, I absolutely love your photo of the wildflower up against the blue wall. It is so good, and has such a southwest feel about it. Have you ever thought of entering it in photo competition? Seriously. It's good.

Blue-Lyme Grass, Elymus arenarius (Leymus arenarius) is a very blue grass without a hint of green that grows well for me in a very dry situation. It spreads by stolons but they are easy to pull up. I have no problem controlling it. I'll take a photo later. I've grown it for two years and hasn't bloomed, which is fine with me since the blooms are beige.. Here is a link that might be useful: Blue-lyme grass on Google

Sounds like they are planted too close together woods tea. I've had the same problem and some selective thinning can add needed definition. The first time I did that it was with large grasses like deergrass if you can imagine those growing too close together up front. Now I use more smaller grasses and save those big ones for special spots. On my walk this evening I went down by the stream in the park and there is a mostly wild grassy area with some wildflowers coming up, the grass is dense. Its got areas of some kind of short fine light colored grass and then some deeper green thicker bladed stuff with rather nice seed heads actually, the variety of height and color are kind of nice but the thing that makes it really makes it nice are the many big chunks of concrete that lay about. They are the same as the chunks lining the edge all along the sloping side to prevent erosion. The grassy area is sort of like a large sandbar. The chunks of rough concrete defines the area and the grasses look good growing around them. Now if those were rocks rather than concrete, they'd really have something. These aren't real huge rocks, they would be liftable sizes with the aid of a dolly. I now know where I am throwing some native wildflower seeds this fall. Some annual gaillardia, rudbeckia, helenium, horsemint and perennial liatris would look quite nice coming up in there. There were some clumps of plains coreopsis coming up, I have that in my Hell Strip and like it among grasses but its fairly short blooming. My situation is just the opposite of yours, I planted too many native plants and not enough grasses. Thats changing and I'm seeing some good results this year. Several of the little bluestem plants are already putting up seed stalks. Must be all the rain. I've redone grass compositions so many times I figure someday I will finally get it right. My virgatums all exceed that height except the ones on the west side where its very dry, high and the ground is hard to deal with due to tree roots. Last year they came up to my chest. Even rothsthalsbusch (selling?) that is supposed to be short was taller than 36". More like just over 4ft.